The dingo is one of Australia’s most well-recognised species internationally. However, debate continues in Australia on whether dingoes are considered pests or a protected native species.
Dingoes have major negative impacts on livestock producers, especially sheep farmers. To reduce this impact, populations are controlled using traps, baits and shooting. Australia also has the Dingo Fence, a wire fence made to protect from the loss of sheep for the sheep industry; it is the longest fence in the world (5,614 km). Between landowners and the government, the annual cost to control wild dog and dingo populations is estimated at ~$30 million annually across Australia.
Effects of control programs, along with additional threats of habitat loss, have diminished dingo populations. Dingoes are currently listed as Vulnerable to extinction under the International Union of Nature Conservation’s Red List of Threatened Species. Bush Heritage Australia.
Since its construction 80 years ago, the Dingo Fence has perhaps unintentionally shaped the landscape of Australia and showed the importance of apex predators like dingoes in ecosystems. The dingo fence has acted as a natural experiment, demonstrating that apex predators like dingoes are key contributors to healthy Australian ecosystems. On the side where dingoes remain present, there is more vegetation because there are fewer kangaroos eating or tramping sensitive plants. There are also fewer invasive species like cats and foxes where dingoes are present, improving native biodiversity and increase numbers of native mammals & marsupials. The difference between sides of the fence is so distinct that you can even see it from space!
Despite this evidence, historical and current legislation over the control of dingoes has had dramatic effects on dingo populations across Australia. In this article, we investigate observations of dingoes within the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) to understand how historical and current differences in attitudes towards dingo conservation affects their data.
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